The Cadillac shows up to spoil the party for the two Toyotas at the end of the first day of the Prologue of the FIA World Endurance Championship, with the protagonists of the World Championship in action at Sebring for the pre-season collective tests.
After peremptorily leading the morning session among the Hypercars, in the afternoon the GR010 Hybrids got off to a good start and immediately got back in front, but the #2 Cadillac of Chip Ganassi Racing in the hands of Earl Bamber at that moment managed to overtake both Japanese cars with the time of 1’48″429, which is not the best of the day, but still enough to finish ahead of the rival Champions #8 and #7 by a very short amount of time, the latter author of 70 laps in the 180′ available .
In the Top5 we also find the two Ferrari 499Ps, even if both the #50 and the #51 are lagging behind the record by around the second, while behind the Reds managed by AF Corse we have the pair of Porsches of Team Penske, with the #5 more fast of the #6.
Heavy gap for the two Peugeots, given that the 9X8 #94 is eighth at 2″6, while the #93 closes ninth at 3″3 with only 12 laps combined, due to a spin that saw Jean-Eric Vergne crash into the barriers at the end of the straight after a contact with Vector’s Oreca.
Rear lights with a lot of margin as in the morning the Glickenhaus 007 LMH #708 and the Vanwall Vandervell 680 #4 by ByKolles.
Ferrari 499P LMH
Photo by: Ferrari
In the LMP2 Class, the script of the morning session is repeated, with the Oreca 07-Gibson #22 of United Autosports obtaining the first place, improving its lap time to 1’51″492, this time trimming by half a second on the #63 of Prema Racing, which is closely followed by the #41 of Team WRT.
The #9 of Prema instead drops to fourth place, keeping behind the #23 of United Autosports and the #48 Jota, with the #31 of Team WRT seventh.
The Alpine climbs back to eighth with the #36, while in the Top10 – where the cars are enclosed in 1″1 – also finish the #34 of Inter Europol Competition and the #10 of Vector Sport in Isotta Fraschini-like livery.
The Jota #28 and the Alpine #35 complete the ranking, even if the French car of Team Signatech is 1″6 from the leaders.
In LMGTE AM the Iron Dames seem to be finding themselves at ease with the Porsche, once again getting their hands on first place and significantly lowering the previous established reference.
The 911 #85 crossed the finish line in 1’59″201 as the best lap and beat the Ferrari #21 of AF Corse and the Porsche #77 of Dempsey Proton Racing by a couple of tenths.
In fourth place is the #54 Ferrari of AF Corse with 0″366 of a delay, which is the exact same delay as the #57 of Kessel Racing.
After the second time in the morning, the #60 Porsche of Iron Lynx dropped to sixth ahead of the #83 Ferrari of Richard Mille AF Corse and the #88 Porsche of Proton Competition.
In a very short classification, the Top10 also sees the Corvette #33 and the Porsche #86 of GR Racing in ninth and tenth place, followed by the Porsche #56 of Project 1-AO and again the three Aston Martins of NorthWest AMR (#98), ORT by TF Sport (#25) and D’Station Racing/TF (#777), again far from the top.
Sunday includes two more sessions divided between morning and afternoon. The first will start when it will be 15.00 in Italy, the second is scheduled for 20.30.
#WEC #Sebring #Prologue #Cadillac #ahead #Toyota #Ferrari #5th